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Rebuilding Penn Station Becomes Issue in Mayor’s Race

It is hard to describe Pennsylvania Station, the nation’s busiest transit hub, as anything but a cramped rat’s nest, disorienting for the 600,000 passengers who pass through it every day and unworthy of a city that views itself as the international capital of finance and media.

But for the first time since the demolition of the station’s original neo-Classical-style building to make way for Madison Square Garden a half-century ago, the seemingly starry-eyed notion of rebuilding Penn Station has landed in the middle of a mayoral race.

Democratic candidates, including Christine C. Quinn, Bill de Blasio and John C. Liu, have called on the Garden to vacate its home atop the underground rail station so that a new structure can be built that would more safely accommodate transit riders and serve as a grand entry point to the city.

Ms. Quinn and Mr. de Blasio have joined some of the city’s most prominent civic groups, which have long lamented the demise of the celebrated structure, in asking the city to approve a measure that would extend the Garden’s operating permit for only 10 years. That would provide enough time, they say, to find an alternative home for the Garden and to devise plans for an expanded Penn Station and the development of the surrounding neighborhood.

The proposal has provoked stiff opposition from the owners of Madison Square Garden, with support from Joseph J. Lhota, a Republican candidate for mayor and a former executive vice president at the Garden, and William C. Thompson Jr., a Democrat who has tried to position himself as the pro-business candidate in a crowded Democratic field. They argue that the permit should be extended in perpetuity.

The city should “leave the world’s most famous arena where it is,” Mr. Thompson said.

There have been many unsuccessful efforts to rebuild Penn Station and it remains to be seen whether the current push builds momentum.

Fixing Penn Station would be an enormously complicated undertaking that would cost billions of dollars and require the cooperation and approval of city, state and federal governments, as well as Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and the Postal Service. Indeed, there will be another race for mayor, and governor, before construction could even begin.

To expand the capacity of the station to handle more trains, officials would need to buy another full city block to install additional tracks. The last attempt to address Penn Station collapsed five years ago, a $14 billion proposal by Related Companies and Vornado Realty Trust to transform the station and move the Garden one block to the west. But it was undermined by a withering recession, a huge shortfall in public financing, political inertia and the oversized scope of the developers’ plan.

That was when James L. Dolan, who controls the Garden and whose management has made him an unpopular figure among Knicks and Rangers fans, instead embarked on a $1 billion renovation of the arena. The Garden has sought to extend its special permit, which expired in January, to operate the arena in perpetuity.

“We meet all required findings for a special permit and operate in a city where no sports arena or stadium has a time limit to its use,” Kimberly Kearns, a spokeswoman for the Garden, said.

There is no question that Penn Station, which was designed for about 250,000 daily passengers, is overwhelmed. There are not enough exits and entrances to handle current crowds, let alone the continuing growth of rail travelers and commuters.

“Everybody who uses the station, even occasionally, knows how unbearable Penn Station is,” said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, a private group. “It’s become a safety issue. This 50-year experiment with putting the Garden on top of a train station doesn’t work.”

That has only heightened the nostalgia for the old station, with its soaring Doric columns and 5,700-pound stone eagles, which was demolished in 1963 because of declining ridership and revenue. The land was sold to the Garden, then three-quarters of a mile to the north at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street. The underground station is owned by Amtrak.

The Garden briefly considered moving its 5,600-seat theater, which is separate from the arena, to the James A. Farley Post Office Building, across Eighth Avenue. That would have allowed for an expansion of Penn Station and new entrances on Eighth Avenue, but the proposal never gained traction.

Last winter, civic activists from the Regional Plan Association and the Municipal Art Society decided it was time to put Penn Station back in the public spotlight, after discovering that the Garden had to apply to extend its special permit. They expected to use the permit process to build publicity, but few of them expected it to become an issue in the mayor’s race.

In February, Community Board 5, and later the borough president, called on the city to extend the Garden’s permit for 10 years, so that plans could be made for a new Penn Station, and a new arena elsewhere. But the City Planning Commission recommended a 15-year extension, although it provided what critics describe as a loophole: the city could further extend the permit without public review if the Garden and the transit operators agreed on a plan for improved access to the station.

Last week, Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, called for the elimination of the loophole and a shorter limit on the permit, 10 years. Ms. Quinn also called for the creation of a Commission for a 21st Century Penn Station to find a new home for the Garden and to build a station that suits the needs of the people who use it.

At Ms. Quinn’s urging, the Council sent the measure back to City Planning on Wednesday for modifications.

The Garden has pushed back, insisting that the permit limitations are improper and would hurt its business.

But even the most ardent advocates for a new Penn Station concede that little will happen unless both the mayor and the governor take the unusual step of agreeing to make it a priority and go to Washington for the money.

“None of these things happen unless there is leadership at the top,” said Vin Cipolla, the president of the Municipal Art Society. “If the mayor is truly committed to seeing this through, then the probability goes up.”

Correction: June 29, 2013

An article on Thursday about the debate over a new Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan emerging as an issue in the race for mayor misstated the year that the old Penn Station was demolished. It was 1963, not 1961.

A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2013, on page A29 of the New York edition with the headline: Rebuilding Penn Station Becomes Issue in Mayor’s Race. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe